human. momentum. man-loving. feminist. aquarian. art.

I don’t want to hear your sympathy, I want to see it.

Even if there wasn’t a single LGBTI+ identifying person who wanted to get married in the world, marriage should be an equal right to everybody in this country regardless of race, religion, sexuality, gender identity, ability, income level. No-one should have to demand equality; this should be beyond common sense in this day and age where we have seen the most depraved prejudices play themselves out on the bodies, minds and histories of populations of people. There is not one reasonable justification to dislike, dismiss or deny equal rights for life and living to a gay person. Not a single reason whatever that you should permit the exclusion of the LGBT community from social privileges and rights.

If you’re reading this and baulking at my claim, it’s possible you are either all about that book or that bigotry – and by that book I mean the holy one that a vast majority of the religions have some outdated notion of diversity contemporary readers have used to justify countless acts of villainy and discrimination. While religion remains the backbone of many societies, and abuses that position wildly by impairing the progress of wholesome and harmonising thought or deed, then we must endure this insufferable maltreatment by zealots and the huddled ignorant. Fair call, you’re clinging to salvation and believe that involves disagreeing with people’s personal choices and private lives.

But where church/mosque/synagogue/sacred circle and state are separated, there is not a single bearing for preventing access to civil liberties that legitimately exists outside the personal pride of our elected officials, of whom many have shown incredible cowardice, which does not belong in the leadership of any nation. Electing officials does not mean relinquishing control. Being an elected official does not mean governing only the portions of society you can relate to.

So here’s where I get to the point, where if you haven’t worked out by now you’re being manipulated, then here come the chips. Every time you feel like you’re waiting too long for a doctor’s appointment, every time you abhor the quality of your child’s education, every time your tertiary education fees skyrocket, and our country lapses into an energy crisis because government haven’t invested in sustainable options, you can blame the marriage equality plebiscite. A strategic manoeuvre intended solely to drive disunity in the LGBTI+ community, to marginalise conservative and progressive alike, and to distract mass media from the outcomes of abhorrent decisions made in recent governments.

Just as Howard did with the referendum for the Republic, as continues to be done to avoid a referendum regarding the status of Indigenous Australians, the Turnbull government hopes to confuse the issue and concerned public of marriage equality to irreparable conditions and create so much civic unrest among the people that he could only be labelled a hero for the eventual calming. The hope is that the plebiscite will divide the community into some pushing against the plebiscite altogether, and some pushing for a YES vote, and some bowing out altogether because it’s too difficult. I’m in the former camp, just to be clear.

I don’t support a single policy that serves no other purpose than to separate people to the extremities of their view and discourage diversity of opinion beyond a yes-no binary (yes another damn binary). I don’t support a single policy that permits prejudice, as Brexit, Trump’s Wall, Putin’s Silencer have all done. I don’t support a policy that is rooted predominantly in dogma of any kind.

So I don’t want to hear your sympathy, I want to see it. I want to see you on the street, I want to be CCd into your emails to your local member of parliament, or forward me your tweets, send me the petition you signed, send me photos of you volunteering, or hand me your receipts for donations you made to organisations supporting equal rights for any community and I’ll chip in too. Research on this campaign is helping the government and socio-political groups to further suppress disabled communities, Indigenous Australians, immigrants, the planet. Step up now. Stop the Bigots.